Secret Wars #4 - Review

Written by Jonathan Hickman. Art by Esad Ribic. Color by Ive Svorcina
Published by Marvel Comics; July 1st, 2015
Worth your $4?: Yes. Yes. Yes.

If issue #3 of Secret Wars was the book of answers, this is the book of plot developments.

The basic through-line of this issue is the idea of Doom's omnipotence. Is it good? Should Strange have allowed him to do this? What are Reed Richards and the rest of the Life Raft survivors going to do about it? Should they do anything about it? Of course our heroes answer to that last question is yes, but then the issue becomes what will Doom do about it?

In the lead up to the confrontation between our team and Doom, there are three groups: The Cabal (who are busy fighting Thors), The Life Raft (getting briefed by Sheriff Strange), and Doom (who's informed of the Cabal fight and looks it over with Sue Storm).

At the top of the book, Strange explains to the group of 616ers (and Miles) exactly how the Battleworld was forged by Doom. There's one quote from Strange that I found actually pretty funny:

"The Earth that was... the Universe that was... the Multiverse that was... These were all formed by some higher order-- some alien, etherial other thing that perfectly constructed not just the material nature of everything, but the rules that governed it as well."

Of course, he goes on to explain that he's referring to The Beyonders (read more about them here), but, read a different way, he's referring to the writing and editing staff of Marvel Comics. I like this reading of it, because in my head it's sort of like Toy Story. The writers created these characters and each universe and then made the decision that they couldn't have so many universes running around out there and began plucking them off one by one. But they made Doom and Strange too powerful and lost control of them. Is it ridiculous? Yes, but it's also a stupendously fun way to look at it.

Strange points out that it was basically either this, or everything dies, but the group has mixed feelings about this. Strange even admits that the world is flawed, but it's Cyclops/Pheonix who has the most extreme feelings about it. With the god-like power of the Phoenix Force coursing through him, he believes that the world should be razed. If it's not perfect, burn it down and start again. Before anyone can even process this however, Strange takes the group into the battle with The Cabal.

Back at Castle Doom, Doom and Sue look on at the battle and Sue can instantly tell from both her scans and, it would appear, her heart that although the Spider-Man, Thanos, Reed Richards, etc. are similar to plenty of others on the Battleworld, there is something different and stronger about them. He even stares at the image of Reed Richards and declares that he has been hunting for versions of him (which, just gotta say called it!). Doom realizes what's up and decides that he will need to intervene.

The confrontation between Doom and our team is big, intense, and surprising in just the right ways. Of course, Doom demands that they kneel to him, and of course, they refuse. What I admittedly wasn't expecting was how Cyclops/Phoenix responded. As he attacked Doom, declaring himself "the future in the present", I legitimately thought that he might have taken down Doom. The Phoenix Force taking charge of the Battleworld would have been a big, crazy path for Secret Wars to take, and for that reason I was very intrigued by the idea. That thought only lasted for a moment though as Doom rose and snapped Cyclops' neck.

I don't know about any of you, but I was shocked at this moment. I re-read it multiple times to make sure I didn't miss the implications of what just happened because basically.... 616 Cyclops, the original Cyclops, is dead. Personally, I'm sad to see him go. His struggles with grief, guilt, and redemption since Avengers vs X-Men has been a highlight for me among Marvel Comics. Of course, young Cyclops is still around, so Scott Summers' fans won't be totally out of luck. But Original Scott, R.I.P.

Then there's something that I think is a false shock. It appears that Doom kills his "old friend" Strange in the final pages of this issue. Unlike Cyclops, I don't think he's dead. Right before his death he said to T'Challa, "My eyes have seen many things over the years, T'Challa... I have hidden many of them. Remember this." Doctor Strange is an incredibly powerful sorcerer, and one who knew the inner workings of the Battleworld better than anyone else, perhaps even more than Doom. I would wager that Strange has either copied himself, tricked Doom into an illusion of killing him, and/or got away in that last moment, severely injured, but alive. (Also, they've already announced a solo book for Strange so, I think he'll find his way back to hang in there one way or another.)

PREDICTIONS
At the end of the book, Strange scatters his friends to the reaches of the Battleworld, leaving Doom to hunt them down, knowing that they will be coming after him. So what do I think is coming?

• This will send Doom into a dictatorial style rampage as he scours the globe looking for the Life Raft crowd. He may even decide to enlist Thanos to his aid, which I expect will backfire. 
• Sue Storm will be hunting Reed Richards behind Doom's back. She won't be able to explain why, even to herself, but she'll know that she has to find him and help him. But, expect Doom to know this, and be secretly using her to find Reed.
• The Maker (1610's Reed Richards) will attempt to side with Doom and take him down from the inside, possibly as his new sheriff.
• Issue #5 will probably have at least a couple of our heroes finding some of our missing 616 folks and bringing them up to speed. I also imagine there will be some fun to be had with a few of them finding their alterna-selves (massive Spider-Verse déjà vu for Peter and Miles).
• As I said above, Strange is most likely alive, and I'll bet he comes back tail end of issue seven or middle of issue 8, just in time to help out and save the day.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Rating: 4.5/5

Unlike many crossover events Marvel has done recently, Secret Wars continues to be well worth the price of admission. This is epic storytelling done the right way and I can't wait to see what happens in the second half of this storyline.

What do you think of Cyclops or Strange's apparant deaths? Fakeouts? Or is dead, dead? Sound off in the comments below!

Secret Wars: Giant-Size Little Marvel #1 - Review

Written by Skottie Young. Art by Skottie Young. Colors by Jean-Fracois Beaulieu
Published by Marvel Comics, 6/3/2015
Rating: 5/5
Worth the $3.99?: Yes. Absolutely, yes.

This may have been one of the funniest week's of Marvel books in recent memory. The star of the show was Skottie Young's "Giant Size Little Marvel." What was it? Basically a Saturday morning cartoon version of the Marvel Universe.

It even starts out with a opening tune that sets up the Kingdom's place in the Battleworld (you can bet I sang it out loud as I was reading) and keeps that absurd tune throughout.
Where the original Avengers vs X-Men involved fights, death battles, and an all an out violent match between Marvel's two premiere super-teams, this story has the Avengers and the X-Men going head to head.... to win customers for their food carts. It's basically  a one upsmanship contest between Captain America and Cyclops.

This book is basically the most self-referential Marvel story ever written. It comes down to the details. Daredevil orders the "Diablo Nachos" (while facing the wrong direction, of course). Deadpool and Spider-Man complain that the Storm pulled off a "make it rain joke" even though Spider-Man thought they "were the funny ones." And Tony Stark meets the new kid, Spider-Gwen, but gets called out by her on how it's creepy for a kid to have a goatee.

And I would be remiss if I didn't give Mr.
Young credit for the high quality of the bad puns throughout the issue. Cyclops gets an eye pun and Thor gets some "hammer time." It's fantastic.

But perhaps the part where my gut was most busted, was the last page. They stop when they see that someone new has moved into "the old Richard's house." At this point, the two teams stop to see if the new kids on the block are (as Wolverine puts it) "Mutants? Science Freaks?" At this point they spin around to see....  the Maximov twins. And as Cyclops and Captain America both call "dibs" I wet myself a little bit from laughter. It's that voice of being self-aware of the audience (and their knowledge of the comics and movie versions of these characters) that really made this book shine.

One moment worth noting in terms of the larger Secret Wars. Across all the books that I've been able to read, there has been a distinctive lack of the Fantastic Four. Thanks to the main Secret Wars story (**SPOILERS FOR ISSUE 3 AHEAD**) we know where the 616 Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Reed Richards are, but we've seen no alternate versions of these characters or Doom. In this safe little world, the Richards' house has been abandoned (presumably for a while since it's referred to as "the old Richard's house") so they're not here either. Was that something Doom did? Did he round them all up? Kill them? It stands to reason that he would want to snuff out his biggest rivals and so this line created an odd darkness in an otherwise lighthearted book.

BOTTOM LINE

This book is funny. It's well written, drawn in a great silly style that we've gotten used to after seeing Skottie Young's drawing grace the variants of basically every book in the Marvel catalogue. If you're up for something that doesn't take itself seriously in any way, shape, or form, then this book is for you.